Cooperative Diversity for Virtual MIMO System in Geometry-Based Stochastic Channel Model

Cooperative diversity is effectively used to combat the correlated fading. In the existing papers on cooperative diversity, the fading channels are idealistically assumed to be Rayleigh fading channel. Taking into account the realistic propagation environments in the presence of spatial fading correlation, i.e., geometry-based stochastic channel model, we study the performance of existing cooperative protocols in the two-ring scattering model. The two source nodes (SNs) and two destination nodes (DNs) form a 2times2 virtual MIMO cooperative system. Therefore, the bit error rate (BER) of cooperation at transmitter is presented in the interference relay channel. The time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme is proposed with half duplex mode. Based on theoretical analyses and simulation results, the cooperative diversity brings performance improvement in correlated channel, even with the keyhole MIMO channel. And, cooperative strategy reduces the spatial correlation of each path, increases the capacity of the correlated channels and enhances the overall performance of virtual MIMO system by high quality of cooperative interuser channel.